The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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T S R D o w n l o a d Version 2.9b A memory resident soft font manager with font compression by Elfring Soft Fonts P.O. Box 61 Wasco, IL 60183 708-377-3520 FAX: 708-377-6402 CIS: 72417,3437 Copyright 1988 - 1993 by Elfring Soft Fonts All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION.................................................. 1 Requirements................................................ 1 Commands.................................................... 2 CONFIGURING TSR DOWNLOAD...................................... 3 Start Up.................................................... 3 SETCOLOR.................................................... 3 DLCFG....................................................... 4 The Hot Key................................................. 5 Parallel or Serial.......................................... 6 Printer Port Number......................................... 6 Ignore Printer Port Status.................................. 6 Drive, Path, & Wild Card.................................... 6 Stopping Noise.............................................. 7 First Soft Font ID Number................................... 7 Window Position............................................. 7 Printer Memory.............................................. 8 Memory Swapping............................................. 8 Enable Mouse................................................ 9 Enable Font Decompression................................... 9 Create Landscape Fonts...................................... 10 Saving A New Version........................................ 10 LOADING TSR DOWNLOAD.......................................... 11 RUNNING TSR DOWNLOAD.......................................... 13 Command Summary............................................. 14 Exit........................................................ 14 Mark........................................................ 14 Change Subdirectory......................................... 15 Download.................................................... 15 Find........................................................ 15 Help........................................................ 16 ID Number................................................... 16 Lists....................................................... 16 Memory...................................................... 18 Output Control.............................................. 18 Printer Control Menu........................................ 18 Select a Font............................................... 19 FONT COMPRESSION.............................................. 20 USING TSR DOWNLOAD WITH OTHER PROGRAMS........................ 21 FONTCAT....................................................... 23 COMMON PROBLEMS............................................... 24 TABLE OF CONTENTS SHAREWARE INFORMATION......................................... 26 ASSOCIATION OF SHAREWARE PROFESSIONALS........................ 27 WARRANTY...................................................... 27 TSR DOWNLOAD ORDER FORM....................................... 28 INTRODUCTION TSR Download is a soft font manager. It works with any HP com- patible soft font for either LaserJet or DeskJet printers. The program locates your soft fonts automatically and displays them in English. It will let you compress your soft fonts and then decompress them on-the-fly as they are being sent to your printer. (This can cut your storage requirements for soft fonts by a factor of 8.) TSR Download also remembers what fonts are in your printer and how much memory they need. When memory resident the program requires only 7K of RAM. This software package contains six separate programs: INSTALL.EXE, DL.EXE, DLCFG.EXE, SETCOLOR.EXE, CFT.EXE, and FONTCAT.EXE. INSTALL moves and unpacks files, helping you in- stall the program for the first time. The DL.EXE, SETCOLOR.EXE, and DLCFG.EXE programs are part of the TSR Download system, CFT.EXE compresses soft fonts, and FONTCAT.EXE is a utility that prints catalogs or reports of your soft fonts. A READ.ME file may be included on this disk and, if so, contains information about any recent changes to the programs. If you purchased a soft font set along with TSR Download addi- tional files will be present. These files are self-extracting libraries of soft fonts. A typical set of Roman and Helv fonts will come in two to four library files, for example: ROMAN.EXE, and HELV.EXE. The INSTALL program will normally handle unpacking these fonts. If you want to unpack them yourself, copy them to a disk with free space and type the program name followed by the enter key. Once the individual fonts are unpacked you may delete the library file from that disk, (but not from the original master disk). TSR Download is a memory resident, (Terminate-and-Stay-Resident), utility program for the IBM PC. It can also run from the command line or in batch file. The TSR Download program must be con- figured before it is used. If you want to use the program in its memory resident mode you must load the program into memory before using it. The program can then be called up from within any non- graphics application (or from within MS Word no matter what the mode) by hitting a Hot-Key. TSR Download has a simple to use point and shoot interface and always offers a help screen. The program can be removed from memory with a simple command line switch. Requirements TSR Download requires an IBM PC, XT, AT, PS2 or compatible com- puter with PC-DOS or MS-DOS operating systems 2.1 and up. TSR Download occupies 7K of RAM when loaded into memory in the swap- ping mode. An HP LaserJet+, Series II, IID, IIP, III, 2000, DeskJet, or compatible printer is required, along with a parallel 1 or serial printer port. Printer ports LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, COM1, and COM2 are supported. TSR Download will work with any soft font that is compatible with the HP line of LaserJet or DeskJet printers. Commands Commands in TSR Download are mnemonic or function key based. You can pick whichever style you are more comfortable with. If you use mnemonic commands the <D> key stands for Download, the <M> key for Memory, the key for Printer Control, etc. If you use function keys the <F10> key stands for Download, the <F6> key for Memory, the <F8> key for Printer Control, etc. TSR Download also supports a mouse. The basic command set includes: <Esc> Exit Download or move back one level <Ret> or <Space> Mark a font for later downloading <C> Change the main soft font subdirectory <D> or <F10> Download all previously marked fonts <F> or <F5> Find the first font name beginning with ? <H> or <F1> Help screen or <F3> Set the next soft font ID number <L> or <F7> Font List management <M> or <F6> Display fonts in you printer's Memory <O> or <F4> Output to parallel, serial, or file or <F8> Printer control menu <S> or <F9> Select the highlighted soft font Mouse - use to move through fonts or menus Left mouse button - mark font or item Right mouse button - answer yes to a question 2 CONFIGURING TSR DOWNLOAD Start Up The TSR Download program can be used as a memory resident manager, a command line program, or a batch file downloader. To use TSR Download in any of these modes you must configure the program before running it the first time. The very first thing you need to do is to install the program. The master disk contains an install program that makes this process painless. First backup the master disk and put the original away. Then put the backup master disk into any floppy disk drive. At the DOS prompt type the floppy drive letter, a colon, and the word install. For example, if you put the disk in drive B: type: b:install <enter> The INSTALL program will prompt you for everything it needs. Once the TSR Download package is installed follow the instructions below. SETCOLOR The first step in configuring the TSR Download program is to run the SETCOLOR program. TSR Download is distributed with default colors that should work on almost any monitor. However, these general colors are not as attractive as they can be since they must be compatible with as many monitors as possible. The SET- COLOR utility modifies the colors that the TSR Download program will use. To run SETCOLOR, both DL.EXE and SETCOLOR.EXE must be in the same subdirectory. In addition, TSR Download may not already be loaded into memory. You start SETCOLOR by typing: setcolor <enter> SETCOLOR will print an instruction screen and show you the colors that TSR Download will use the next time it is loaded and ac- tivated. You use the function keys to alter these colors. TSR Download has four different types of information, each of which may be displayed in a different color. For each choice there are 16 possible colors that can be picked. <F7> changes the back- ground color, <F8> the text color, <F9> the cursor color, and <F10> the marked font color. Pressing a function key repeatedly toggles you through the range of 16 possible colors. You can change the direction of the toggle function by pressing (Insert). 3 Almost all display systems are capable of showing three distinct colors. (Monochrome displays can do this too!) Simply pick a set of colors that you like. We favor a blue background, white text, red cursor text, and green marked text. (This color scheme won't work on a laptop or monochrome display.) Once you have a color scheme that you like hit the <Esc> key. The SETCOLOR program will ask you if you want to save this set of colors. Answer with a <Y> for yes or an <N> for no. If you answer yes, SETCOLOR will modify the TSR Download program so that your color choices are always used. DLCFG The DLCFG.EXE program configures the TSR Download program (DL.EXE) for your particular computer system. This configuration program must be run before you try to use the TSR Download program! Remember that the DLCFG program modifies the DL.EXE program. To start the configuration process, make sure that both DL.EXE and DLCFG.EXE are in the current subdirectory. (It doesn't matter where this is.) Then type: dlcfg <enter> Note if you have problems with a continous beep on erros use the following start-up command: dlcfg -q The configuration program will start and attempt to locate the DL.EXE program. (If DL.EXE is not found the configuration program will quit.) The initial screen lets you know the current version of the program and lists the basic control keys. Hit any key to move on to the configuration screen. Here you can modify all the major features of the TSR Download program. The configuration program will display 19 different features you can alter. To modify a feature, use the up or down arrow keys to move to the feature you want to change. The help window at the bottom of the configuration screen will explain what options you have for this data field. Typically, you type or edit a new response, followed by hitting the <enter> key. When you are finished modifying items hit the <F10> key. DLCFG will ask you if you want to save these changes. The main configuration screen looks as follows: 4 Hot-Key Control/Shift/Alt: Ctrl + Alt Hot-Key Data Key: D Parallel or Serial (P/S) P Printer Port #: 1 Ignore Printer Port Status: N Main Disk Drive, Path, & Wild Card: C:\fonts\*.usp 2nd Disk Drive, Path, & Wild Card: 3rd Disk Drive, Path, & Wild Card: 4th Disk Drive, Path, & Wild Card: Beep On Error: Y First Soft Font ID Number: 0 Upper Left Column of Window: 13 Upper Left Row of Window: 8 Printer RAM Memory: 512 Memory Swap Type: 0 Memory Swap Path: c:\ Enable Mouse (Y/N): Y Enable Font Decompression (Y/N): Y Create Landscape Fonts (Y/N): N The following section describes each TSR Download configuration option. Please verify each option you change before leaving the configuration program. Incorrectly configured programs will not operate the way you expect them to. The Hot-Key No two memory resident programs use the same Hot-Key combination. TSR Download lets you change the Hot-Key to any combination you want. There are two entries in the configuration program that al- ter the Hot-Key. The first entry changes the control/alt/shift key combination, while the second entry changes the data key. Your Hot-Key must always be some combination of control and data keys. To change the control key sequence, move the cursor to the Hot- Key Control/Shift/Alt: line. Use the <Space> key to toggle be- tween combinations of the <Ctrl>, <Alt>, <L-Shift>, and <R-Shift> keys. When the display shows the control code combination you want, hit the <enter> key. All the control keys shown must be held down together with the data key to activate the TSR program. To change the data key, move the cursor to the Hot-Key Data Key: line. Now hit and data key you want to use followed by a <enter> key. You have just altered the Hot Key sequence. If you make a mistake and enter something you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. 5 Parallel or Serial Download will work with parallel or serial printer ports. If you have a choice you should use a parallel printer port. Parallel communication is much faster than serial. (TSR Download can send fonts over a parallel port at speeds up 8.9 kilobytes per second.) Enter a for a parallel printer port or an <S> for a serial printer port, followed by a <enter> key. If you make a mistake and enter something you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. Note that if you chose serial communication you must initialize the communications port yourself. TSR Download will not do this for you! You can use the DOS mode command to set the serial communication rate. For ex- ample, to set 9600 baud on communications port 1 type: mode COM1:9600,N,8,1,P <enter> Printer Port Number This option lets you specify the port number that your printer is connected to. You can specify a parallel printer port number from 1 to 3, or a serial printer port number from 1 to 2. Only these numbers will be accepted. If the number you enter is incorrect the screen will remain in edit mode. Hit the <enter> key when the printer port is correct. If you make a mistake and enter some- thing you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. Ignore Printer Port Status The TSR Download program always checks the status of the parallel printer port before sending any data. This normally works quite well. However, if you map a parallel port to a serial one via MODE or a network, or if you have a non-standard, or a very fast computer you may experience problems. TSR Download might think your printer port is busy when it is actually free. If TSR Download indicates that your printer port is busy when you know it is not, you can use this option to tell the program to ignore printer status. If you have printer problems like this try chang- ing the <N> to a <Y> followed by a <enter> key. Drive, Path, & Wild Card TSR Download needs to be told where your soft fonts are stored. You can specify up to four separate subdirectories for soft fonts. Each entry must specify the disk drive, subdirectory path, and wild card to be used to locate your fonts. If you are using optional font compression the wild card must be set to *.*. To alter an entry move the cursor to the Main Disk Drive, Path, & Wild Card:, (or the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th), line and enter a valid 6 drive, path, and wild card. If you make a mistake and enter something you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. For example: D:\fonts\*.usp C:\*.* D:\WS2\FONT\*.??l Do not tell TSR Download that your soft fonts are located in the current subdirectory by typing: *.*. You must supply a disk drive, path, and wild card. The wild card pattern can be used to speed up the process of locating soft fonts. If your soft fonts are mixed in with other files you can locate them more quickly through the use of this wild card. For example, the wild card pattern ``*.US?'' will find all files with the extension ``.USP'' or ``.USL''. If your fonts are located in their own special sub- directory you can use the ``*.*'' wild card to locate all files in that subdirectory. Once again, if you use font compression, the wild card must be *.*. Stopping Noise The TSR Download program normally beeps when you try and move the cursor off the screen, or use a key that's not recognized. In some office environments this can be annoying. You can turn this feature off by doing the following. Move the cursor down to the Beep On Error: line. Enter an <N> followed by the <enter> key if you want peace and quite. If you make a mistake and enter some- thing you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. First Soft Font ID Number When a soft font is sent to the printer it must be assigned a soft font ID number. Each soft font must have a unique number as- sociated with it. TSR Download normally starts assigning ID num- bers with 0 and adds 1 for each soft font downloaded. You can change this initial number here in the configuration program or in the actual Download program using option . Move the cursor to the First Soft Font ID Number: line. Now enter any ID number from 0 - 32,767 followed by the <enter> key. If you make a mis- take and enter something you don't want want, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. Window Position The TSR Download program normally pops up in the middle of your screen. You can change the position of this window. There are two different configuration entries that can be used change the loca- tion of the TSR Download window. One entry controls the column, 7 and the other the row where the window will appear. (Upper left row & column.) Move the cursor to the Upper Left Column of Win- dow: line and enter a number from 0 to 26. This will vary the location of the window from left to right across the screen. Now move the cursor down to the Upper Left Row of Window: line and enter a number from 0 to 13. This will vary the location of the window from the top to the bottom of the screen. If you make a mistake and enter something you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. Printer Memory Since the TSR Download program knows how much memory each font will use in your printer, the program can be set up to warn you when you try and download more fonts than your printer will hold. Just enter the number of kilobytes of RAM memory your printer has. A DeskJet has 128, 256, or 512 kilobytes of memory. A Laser- Jet typically comes with 512 kilobytes. If you have additional memory it usually is added in 1 megabyte sections. So if you have 1 megabyte of additional memory you have 1560 kilobytes, (remember the 512K you started with), or with 2 megabytes you have 2608 kilobytes. To set a new memory limit, move the cursor to the ``Printer Memory:'' line. Now enter your printer RAM memory from 0 - 6000 followed by the <enter> key. You can disable this memory limit check by entering 0. If you make a mistake and enter something you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. DeskJet Plus owners with 512K of memory should note that TSR Download alters the memory amount entered if it is larger than 256K. The program assumes that if you have more than 256K of memory you have a laser printer. A laser printer with 512K of memory actually only has 285K of free memory for fonts. So, when you enter a RAM amount over 256K, TSR Download subtracts 227K from this number. The easiest way around this is to add 227K to your memory amount. Thus a DeskJet owner with 512K of RAM should enter 739K. Memory Swapping Most people don't want to sacrifice much memory to TSR programs. To save space, TSR Download has the ability to swap itself in and out of memory. When swapping is enabled TSR Download takes only 7K of RAM. Swapping is only useful for people with: a hard disk, EMS memory, or a RAM disk. When memory swapping is enabled a small portion of TSR Download sits in memory as a TSR. The rest of the program is saved on hard disk, RAM disk, or in EMS memory. When you activate TSR Download part of your current application program is swapped or exchanged 8 with the TSR Download code that was on the disk or in EMS memory. The act of swapping program code is quite fast. Note that because portions of computer memory are swapped with disk the order that programs are loaded into memory becomes very important. If, for example, you are using a mouse with TSR Download the mouse driver must be loaded before TSR Download. Otherwise, TSR Download might swap the actual mouse driver code out of memory! Likewise, TSR Download must be loaded before any program that you want TSR Download to pop up in. Two options control memory swapping. The Memory Swap Type: entry tells TSR Download how to swap the program. Entering a 0 lets TSR Download make its own best choice. (EMS memory is favored first, then hard disk.) Entering a 1 forces TSR Download to swap to EMS memory, if possible. A 2 forces swapping to hard disk. Do not use option 3 which uses a special driver to access extended memory. Finally, if you want to disable swapping enter a 4. If you make a mistake and enter something you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. The second option Memory Swap Path: tells TSR Download what drive and path to place disk files in when the program is swapped to disk. You must enter a drive and path here even if swapping to EMS memory is chosen. If you have a RAM disk in your system, use this disk drive and path as the Memory Swap Path. This will sig- nificantly speed up program operation. Enable Mouse TSR Download supports a mouse. The mouse is used to move through the lists of fonts or menu options. You can also use the mouse to select a font or menu option. The Enable Mouse: option lets you control this feature. If you answer with an <N> here, then TSR Download will not use the mouse at all. If you answer with a <Y> then TSR Download will look to see if a mouse driver is present when it is first installed. If a mouse driver is found then TSR Download will use the mouse. One word of warning. The mouse driver must be installed before TSR Download. Otherwise it is possible for TSR Download to swap the code containing the mouse out of memory causing your system to crash. If you make a mistake and enter something you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. Enable Font Decompression Soft fonts take up a great deal of disk space. TSR Download now lets you compress your soft fonts to save on disk space. When you let TSR Download send the fonts to your printer the fonts will automatically be decompressed. TSR Download uses the new CFT (Compact Font Technology) from Rubicon Computer Labs to compress and decompress fonts. This technology has a number of special 9 features. First, decompression of soft fonts on the fly only slows downloading of soft fonts by a small amount. Since TSR Download is very fast at sending fonts, this slow down is not significant. Second, most applications that read soft fonts will find that fonts compressed with CFT appear normal. That is you do not have to decompress the fonts to install them into Windows, Ventura, WordStar, etc! (You do have to do all downloading with TSR Download, however.) To enable the font decompression option move to the Enable Font Decompression option and enter a <Y>. You still have to compress the soft fonts with the CFT.EXE program and you must make sure the wild card used to search for soft fonts in *.*. (Compressed soft fonts have the last letter of their file name change to a ``c'' if they are portrait and a ``u'' if they are landscape.) If you don't intend to use font decompression enter an <N> here. If you make a mistake and enter something you don't want here, just hit the <Esc> key to return to the original entry. Create Landscape Fonts Some laser printers require separate portrait and landscape soft fonts. This effectively doubles the amount of disk storage space that is needed for soft fonts. TSR Download can rotate or create landscape versions of your soft fonts from their portrait equiv- alents. If you own a LaserJet Plus, LaserJet II, or a compatible printer this option will save disk space for you. Move to the Create Landscape Fonts option and enter a <Y> to enable this fea- ture. Owners of the LaserJet IIP, III, or 2000 do not need this option. You must also have enable Font Decompression, above, to use this option. Saving A New Version Of TSR Download When you have finished entering data on the configuration screen hit the <F10> key. The configuration program will ask: Save the modified DOWNLOAD program? If you answer with a <Y> a new version of TSR Download will be created. This new version replaces the old one! If you answer with an <N> all the changes you made will be forgotten. 10 LOADING TSR DOWNLOAD TSR Download works as a memory resident, command line, of batch file program. The program can be passed optional arguments when it is run that control its basic operation. These arguments con- trol command line operation and list file control. The general form of a TSR Download command is: dl [listfile] [-x] <enter> Where listfile is the optional name of a disk file that contains a list of font file names to send to your printer, and -x is an optional command. Optional commands include: -r - remove the program from memory, -c - run from the command line, and -b - download fonts from within a batch file. Only one optional com- mand can be used at a time. If a list file is present on the com- mand line, the fonts specified in it are always sent to the printer before anything else is done. To use TSR Download without loading it into memory type: dl -c <enter> The TSR Download window will appear immediately and the program will search for your soft fonts. All aspects of program operation are the same whether you are running from the command line or as a memory resident program. The only thing that changes is how the program is activated. To use the memory resident version of the program you must load it into memory first. If the program successfully loads into memory you will see the message shown below: dl <enter> TSR Download is now loaded into memory. Use Ctrl-Alt-D to activate. Remove with dl -r. If you try and re-install TSR Download after it is already loaded into memory, your computer will beep and the following error mes- sage will appear: TSR Download is already in memory! To remove TSR Download from memory use the -r option. This will only work if TSR Download is the last program loaded into memory. dl -r TSR Download can also be used to send a list of fonts to the printer without being loaded into memory or popping up. You use the -b command in conjunction with the list file option. So to simply send a list of fonts to the printer type: 11 dl listfile -b When TSR Download is first being loaded into memory you can op- tionally send a list of fonts to your printer. This is a handy way to initialize your printer with the fonts you normally use. For instance, you could put the command to install the program in your autoexec.bat file and have TSR Download also send your favorite soft fonts to your printer. To send a list of soft fonts you must first create a disk file that contains the name of each soft font you wish to download. Note that TSR Download contains a complete list management program to automatically make these soft font lists for you. Just see the List command in this documentation. (It is also possible to use an ASCII text editor to create these list files.) These soft font list files are always stored in the main or primary soft font subdirectory. List files are assumed to have the font file name extension of ``.LST''. (You do not have to use the extension when specifying a list file name.) How do you use list files? Assume you have a soft font list file, called ROMAN.LST, stored in your primary soft font subdirectory. (Remember that you must configure TSR Download using the DLCFG.EXE program and define this subdirectory.) To send this list of fonts to your printer as Download is first loaded into memory type: dl roman.lst <enter> Printer status is checked before each soft font is sent. (If your printer is off, not selected, or out of paper, you will have the option to fix the problem and then send the font, or stop the downloading sequence.) Note that when TSR Download is installed as a TSR and sends a list of fonts this way the program will remember what fonts are resident in your printer. The <M> command can be used to display a list of these fonts. You can create these list files with any ASCII text editor, (EDLIN is an ASCII text editor), but TSR Download will do a bet- ter job of making them. In a soft font list file the name of each font appears on a separate line. For example, if you have a set of six Times-Roman fonts in your soft font subdirectory the list file would appear as follows: TR100RPN.USP <enter> TR100BPN.USP <enter> TR100IPN.USP <enter> TR120RPN.USP <enter> TR120BPN.USP <enter> TR120IPN.USP <enter> 12 RUNNING TSR DOWNLOAD Most operations in TSR Download are done from the main menu. This is where the majority of all soft font control takes place. From the main menu you may go to anyone of four separate sub-menus. The sub-menus include: help, printer control, list management, and printer memory usage. These menus operate as follows: Figure 1 The TSR Download program is activated by holding the <Ctrl> and <Alt> keys down while simultaneously pressing the <D> key. (Or use the key combination you selected with the configuration program.) A small window will appear in the center of your screen with a list of soft fonts. (See below.) Note that the standard version of TSR Download only supports 300 soft fonts at a time. If more than 300 soft fonts are present, TSR Download stops after locating the first 300 fonts. Figure 2 The window will now show a list of soft font names, sorted in al- phabetical order. At the bottom of the window a single line is reserved for commands. This line also indicates how many soft fonts have been marked and how much printer memory they will oc- cupy. If you have more soft fonts than a single window will hold (8), you can scroll through the rest of the fonts using the cur- sor keys or your mouse. Once activated, TSR Download responds to the following single key commands: 13 <Esc> Exit Download or move back one level <Ret> or <Space> Mark a font for later downloading <C> Change the main soft font subdirectory <D> or <F10> Download all previously marked fonts <F> or <F5> Find the first font name beginning with ? <H> or <F1> Help screen or <F3> Set the next soft font ID number <L> or <F7> Font List management <M> or <F6> Display fonts in you printer's Memory <O> or <F4> Output to parallel, serial, or file or <F8> Printer control menu <S> or <F9> Select the highlighted soft font Mouse - use to move through fonts or menus Left mouse button - mark font or item Right mouse button - answer yes to a question While in TSR Download, you can move through the font list by using the cursor keys or the mouse. The <Home> key takes you to the first font in the list, and the <End> key to the last. The <PgUp> & <PgDn> keys move between separate screens of fonts. You can also use the <F> key to find any font by name. The following chapter explains each of the commands in detail. <Esc> Exit Download You can leave TSR Download from the main menu by hitting the <Esc> key. This will return you to your application. Alternately, the <Esc> key will also move you back one menu level. <enter> or <Space> Mark To mark a font for downloading or for list file creation you first move to the font by using the cursor keys. The cursor arrow keys move up and down the list of fonts, or you can use the mouse. The <Home> key can be used to return to the first font on a page. The <End> key moves to the last font on a page. The <PgUp> and <PgDn> keys move between screens of fonts. (These two keys only work if you have more than a full window, (8), of soft fonts.) To mark a font hit the left mouse button, <enter>, or the <Space> key. The highlighted font will be marked (its color will change and a dot will appear to the left of the font name), and the cur- sor will move down the list. If you accidentally mark a font you don't want, move back to it and use the left mouse button, <enter> or <Space> key. This will toggle the mark off. If you have enabled the printer memory check feature in the configura- tion program, TSR Download will check each time you mark a font to see if you have enough memory left to store it. (This feature can be disabled by entering a value of 0 for printer memory.) When TSR Download detects that you have exceeded your printers 14 memory storage ability it flashes a brief message on the bottom of the window and makes a warbling sound. Note that the font is still marked and will be downloaded unless you remove the mark from it. The lower right portion of the screen will show you how many fonts are currently marked and the total printer RAM these fonts will require. <C> Change Subdirectory You can change the main subdirectory and wild card that are used to locate soft fonts at any time. Doing this will clear the list of soft fonts that have been loaded into your printer. To change subdirectories, enter a <C>, followed by a valid disk drive, path, and wild card. (C:\fontsl\*.* for example.) If any item is missing TSR Download will ignore the new subdirectory informa- tion. Note that this command effects where TSR Download looks for font lists. <D> or <F10> Download To download all marked fonts, hit the <D> key. TSR Download will ask you whether you want to send your fonts now. Answer with right mouse button or <Y> for yes, or an <N> for no. If you answer yes, TSR Download will check the printer status to make sure the printer is on line and ready. (If the printer is not ready, an error message will appear and you will have the option of fixing the problem or returning to the Download main menu.) The fonts will then be sent to the printer, and a status message will tell you what font is currently being downloaded. Once a font is downloaded to your printer it will appear in the list of fonts that can be displayed with the <M> option. <F> or <F5> Find It can be difficult to locate a single font in a long list of similar ones. TSR Download offers the Find command to help you with this task. Hit the <F> key to tell the program you want to search for a font. The prompt at the bottom of the screen will change to Find?. You can enter any single letter. TSR Download will locate the first font that begins with that letter and posi- tion the cursor there. If you have long lists of fonts with the same typeface name the Find command can be used to search for a specified point size. If you enter a single digit at the Find? prompt, TSR Download will search forward from its current cursor position to find a font with a matching point size. Entering a 6 or 8 will find matching 6 or 8 point fonts. Entering a 1 or 2 tells the program to find 10 or 20 point fonts. 15 <H> or <F1> Help A help menu is always available. It can be invoked by hitting either the <F1>, or <H> key. This menu summarizes the options available under TSR Download. Use the mouse or the cursor keys to select a help topic. Then hit the left mouse button or the <enter> key to read that particular help topic. Return back to the main help display by hitting the <Esc> key and back to the main menu by hitting <Esc> again. Figure 3 or <F3> Soft Font ID The ID number to be assigned to the next soft font can be changed using this key. Hit the key and you will be prompted for an ID number from 0 to 32,767. Enter your ID number followed by a left mouse button, or <enter>. This number will be used for the next soft font that is downloaded. Each successive soft font will receive the next sequential number. (If you set the ID number to 5, and download 3 fonts, the first will get ID 5, the next ID 6, and the last ID 7. If you download more fonts later, the next soft font ID will be 8.) <L> or <F7> Font Lists TSR Download offers complete font list management. You can use the program to send a list of fonts to your printer or to create a font list. To move to the font list menu hit the <L> key. Your display will show the following: Figure 4 16 Use the mouse or the cursor keys to move to the function you want. Then hit left mouse button or <enter> to select that func- tion. In the screen shown above this would select the Add fonts to an existing font list function. The Add function tells TSR Download to take all the previously marked fonts and add them to an existing list file. You will be prompted for the name of this list file. As a convenience, all functions that require a list file name assume that any file name that does not have an exten- sion uses the default extension for list files ".LST". Thus the file names test.lst and test are equivalent. To enter a file name with no extension just add a period to the end of the file name. Thus test. and test.lst are not equivalent. Creating a new font list from within TSR Download is easy. At the main menu of TSR Download, mark the fonts you wish to put into a list file, just as if you were going to send them to the printer. Now enter the List File menu with the <L> key. Select the Create a new font list and save it option. TSR Download will prompt you for a file name for the new font list. Enter the new name fol- lowed by a return. (Note the program will never overwrite any ex- isting file with the same name.) Once again, if you make a mis- take and don't wish to create a list of fonts use the <Esc> key. Deleting an existing font list is the next option on this menu. When Delete an existing font list is selected, TSR Download will ask you for the name of the list file. Enter any valid name fol- lowed by a <enter> and that list file will be deleted. A Directory of all font list files can be displayed. Move the cursor down to Display directory of list files and hit left mouse button or <enter>. TSR Download will search the main soft font subdirectory and display all list files found. A maximum of 32 file names can be displayed. Make is a command that lets you build a font list of all the soft fonts currently residing in printer memory. You don't have to mark any fonts to use this command. Select Make a list of fonts in printer and hit left mouse button or <enter>. You will be asked for a list file name. The list file created here will con- tain all the soft fonts currently in your printers memory. The Send command is used to send a font list to your printer. Select Send a font list to the printer and hit left mouse button or <enter>. You will be asked for a list file name. Enter the name followed <enter>. TSR Download will begin sending fonts to your printer. The status line on the bottom of the screen will show the name of each font as it is being downloaded. To View the contents of a soft font list move down to View a font list and hit left mouse button or <enter>. You will be asked for the list file name. Enter the name followed by <enter>. TSR Download will display the soft font file names (up to a maximum of 32) found in this list file. 17 <M> Memory Usage You can display a list of all the soft fonts currently residing in your printer and their memory requirements with this option. Just hit the <M> key to bring up this display. A count of the number of fonts in your printer and the memory they occupy will be shown on the bottom status line of the window. The rest of the window will show a list of fonts now resident in your printer. You can move through this list using the cursor keys or the mouse. While this list is displayed, you may clear it by hitting the <W> Wipe key. Note that changing the soft font subdirectory will clear this list. Use the <Esc> key to return to the main font menu. See the sample screen below: Figure 5 <O> Output Control You can redirect the output of Download to a disk file, or change the serial or parallel printer port assignment with this option. To select this option hit the <O> key. You will see a message ``Parallel, Serial, or File (P/S/F):''. To select a new parallel or serial printer port hit either or <S> respectively. You will be asked for the port number. Respond with a parallel port number 1 - 3 or a serial port number 1 - 2. To redirect all TSR Download output to a disk file, chose the <F> option. You will then be prompted for a disk file name. Please use a disk drive, path, and file name! All further output will be saved in this disk file. You can return to normal parallel or serial operation by first selecting the <O> option and then by specifying the port type and number. Printer Control Menu To select the printer control menu, use the key. You will then see the menu shown below. Use the mouse or the cursor keys to move to the desired action. Use the left mouse button or the <enter> key to select an action. You will be asked to verify that you want to send this sequence to the printer. Answer with a right mouse button or <Y> for yes, or an <N> for no. If the printer is off, not selected, out of paper, or busy you can retry 18 or abort this operation. Hit the <Esc> key to return back to the main menu. Figure 6 Each menu item sends a matching command string to your printer. Thus Form Feed sends a form feed out. Most other entries are self explanatory. Default Font sends a command to you printer in- structing it to return back to its designated internal default font, usually Courier with the PC8 symbol set. 10 and 16.67 cpi tell your printer to switch between the two internal font pitches available. 66 lines/page forces most laser printers to put a standard 66 lines on a single page. 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, & 16 lines/inch switch the line spacing on your printer. Finally, File to Printer lets you send any disk file to the printer. You can make soft font test files or simple printer command strings and send them this way. <S> Selecting A Font Any soft font resident in your printer can be selected as the primary (active) font. To do this, first move the cursor to the font you want to select. Now hit the <S> key. TSR Download will ask you if you want to select this soft font. Answer with a right mouse button or <Y> or <N>. If you want to determine how to select an unknown soft font you can redirect the output of TSR Download to a file (<O> command), select the font, and then ex- amine this disk file. 19 Font Compression The CFT utility program is used to compress or decompress soft fonts. If you want to save disk space, use CFT to compress your soft font files and then let TSR Download automatically decompress the fonts as they are downloaded. If you want TSR Download to create landscape versions of your soft fonts you also need to compress the fonts with CFT. Note that the CFT utility can only create landscape fonts up to 48 point in height. CFT ONLY works with LaserJet soft fonts. If you want to compress your soft fonts, first make sure you have made backup copies of the original fonts. Then run CFT as follows: cft *.usp The command above will locate all soft fonts in the current sub- directory that end with the file name extension ``.USP'' and com- press them. The compressed fonts files will have the same file name with the file name extension of ``.USC''. The original fonts (*.usp) will still be in your directory. You will need to delete these yourself. To compress all fonts in a different subdirectory type: cft c:\fonts\*.* If you want CFT to compress your soft fonts and automatically delete the uncompressed versions when it is finished use the -r option. Make sure your fonts are backed up before doing this. A sample command would be: cft c:\fonts\*.* -r To decompress soft fonts use the same command format but add the -d (decompress) option. For example, to decompress the fonts we just compressed: cft c:\fonts\*.* -d The CFT compression program saves fonts in a format that should be compatible with most laser smart applications. Most programs will be able to read these fonts and extract font information and character width tables. Remember though that you must use TSR Download to send the fonts to your printer, since this program decompresses the fonts as they are being downloaded. CFT stands for Compact Font Technology. This technology was developed by Rubicon Computer Labs, 2 Pommiers, Hull, Quebec, Canada J8Z 2M2. Rubicon makes Rubicon Publisher a desktop pub- lishing package for the IBM PC. 20 Using TSR Download In Other Programs Word Perfect 5.0 & 5.1 It is quite easy to use TSR Download with Word Perfect. TSR Download is much faster downloading soft fonts and offers automatic font decompression. To use TSR Download with Word Per- fect you must re-install your printer driver and mark each soft font you own with a * instead of a +. This tells Word Perfect not to download the fonts before each document is printed. Once this is done you can use TSR Download to send your fonts or you can use Word Perfect's Printer Initialize command. To re-install your printer driver, start Word Perfect and hit (Shift) <F7> for the printer menu. Press <S> for the Select Printer menu, then (A) for Additional Printers. Use the cursor keys to highlight the name of your printer, then press <S> for Select. Word Perfect will tell you the name of the driver file it is creating. Then press <F7>. You are now at the Edit screen. Press (4) for Cartridges and fonts and use the cursor keys to move down to the soft font libraries. Enter a library with <enter> and mark your soft fonts with a *. Exit and save. To download fonts follow the instructions below for other word processors. MS Word 5.0 MS Word automatically asks you if you want it to download soft fonts before a document is printed. Just answer <N> to this ques- tion. Then follow the instructions below for all other word processors. DisplayWrite 4 MultiMate 4 Nota Bene Q & A Samna Word Word Star 5 - 6 Word Star 2000 XyWrite All of the word processors above handle soft fonts but don't make any realistic provision for downloading soft fonts. (Some make up DOS batch files.) To use TSR Download with these word processors, simply install the program in memory resident mode. Before print- ing a document, pop up TSR Download and send the fonts to your printer. Remember that with TSR Download you can always check to see which fonts are currently in the printer with the <M> com- mand. If you use a particular combination of fonts often it pays to use TSR Download to make up a list of those fonts. Then you can send the entire list of fonts at once with a single command. 21 Dbase Lotus 123 SuperCalc The application programs listed above are not laser smart. They don't really know how to use or take advantage of soft fonts. However, with TSR Download you can force these programs to use a soft font within a spread sheet or data base report. Just pop up TSR Download inside any of these programs. Download the soft font you want to use for your report. Now move the cursor back to the font you just sent to the printer. Hit the <S> Select key. This will make that soft font the active font in your printer. If the font is small you may want to move to TSR Download's Printer Control Menu - . In this menu you can change the line spacing of the printer or its orientation. Remember that you can't select a landscape oriented font unless you put the printer into landscape mode before selecting it. PC-DOS Controlling soft fonts from the PC-DOS command line is very similar to using them in Dbase or Lotus. You activate TSR Download, send a font to the printer and then select that font. You can optionally change the line spacing too. You laser printer or DeskJet is now set to print with a soft font. Just copy your document to the printer. Once you have sent the entire document you might need to pop up TSR Download and send a Form Feed to the printer to eject the page. (Use the Printer Control menu to do this.) 22 FONTCAT The FONTCAT program is a unique utility that prints a complete catalog of all the soft fonts you own. To run FONTCAT you specify the disk drive, path, and wild card to be used to search for your soft fonts. The FONTCAT program locates all your soft font files, analyses them, and prints a short report explaining just what each soft font file really is. A sample catalog sec- tion is shown below: Figure 7 The catalog shows the font file name first, followed by the typeface name. Note that FONTCAT can display the true typeface name of any soft font, not just the standard typefaces defined by HP. The catalog then shows the font point size and pitch. Proportionally spaced fonts display the entry prop. while fixed width fonts have their pitch displayed here. The stroke weight of the font and its style are displayed next. Font orientation, the symbol set and the printer the font is designed for are then shown. Finally, the font file size is displayed in kilobytes. To run FONTCAT and make a catalog of soft fonts you only need to know the subdirectory in which they are stored. Make sure your printer is turned on and ready, and then type: fontcat c:\fonts\*.* <enter> This will locate all valid soft font files on C: in subdirectory \fonts. You can also change the printer port to any valid paral- lel or serial port, or you can redirect the catalog to a disk file. To print the same catalog on LPT2 or COM1 type: fontcat c:\fonts\*.* LPT2 <enter> fontcat c:\fonts\*.* COM1 <enter> Finally, to send the catalog to the disk file catalog.txt on drive D: type: fontcat c:\fonts\*.* d:\catalog.txt <enter> 23 Common Problems Q: My laser printer normally works just fine. However, when I use TSR Download to send a soft font to it, the font is garbled, doesn't appear, or weird things happen. A: This is a common problem and is due to bad hardware! When a soft font is downloaded through a parallel port your printer receives data at the maximum possible speed. If your printer cable does not meet minimum specifications, or if your parallel printer port is marginal the problems mentioned above may occur. Your parallel printer port cable should be 6 feet long or less and made of quality materials. You should not have a switch box in series with this cable! If you still have a problem try switching to a different parallel port. These ports are easy to damage with static electricity. They may appear to work fine nor- mally but fail during high speed transfers. Q: I download a soft font and make it my primary font, just as your manual says. If I copy files to the printer they appear in that font. If I use my word processor I always get my default in- ternal font (Courier). A: The first thing most word processors do, (before printing anything), is to reset the printer. Resetting a laser or DeskJet printer automatically returns the printer to its default font, (Courier). The only way around this problem is to provide the word processor with a printer driver that tells it how to use soft fonts. Q: When downloading a number of soft fonts my printer stops work- ing and displays a flashing "20" on the LCD display. A: You have run out of memory in your printer! First, make sure that you have configured TSR Download and indicate how much memory your printer has. Then the program will warn you before you run out of memory. If you are sending new fonts to the printer try deleting the old ones before sending any more new fonts. The Printer Control menu in TSR Download will let you do this. If the problem reoccurs with some regularity you should start looking for a memory add on board. Q: The soft font ID numbers I assign with TSR Download do not match the numbers shown on my sample font print sheet. A: The Soft Font ID numbers assigned by TSR Download can be used to select soft fonts. However, these ID numbers have no relation- ship to the numbers displayed on an internal font print sheet. Internal font print sheet numbers always start at 1 and go up. Soft font ID numbers can range from 0 - 32,767. There is no way 24 to display the actual soft font ID number on a print sheet. Ig- nore the ID numbers shown on these sheets. Q: Anytime I use TSR Download to send a font or command to my printer I get the "PRINTER NOT READY" message. A: TSR Download always checks the status of the parallel printer port before sending anything to the printer. This status check is done by calling a standard BIOS function that returns information about printer select, paper level, busy, etc. Some computer BIOSs are not truly IBM compatible and return incorrect status. Some printer cables are not wired correctly and thus do the same thing. You can also use the MODE command or a network to make a serial printer port look like a parallel one, (that doesn't return printer status) . The DLCFG program lets you alter TSR Download so that the program no longer pays any attention to parallel printer port status. See the documentation for more in- formation on this option. Q: I have 55 soft fonts in my subdirectory, yet TSR Download only displays 51 of them. A: A number of public domain soft fonts have incorrect font headers. TSR Download checks each font file to make sure it has a valid soft font header. (This is how the program finds soft fonts for its font display.) If you have a number of public domain soft fonts a few of them may have bad font headers. This is why TSR Download does not display them. Q: I followed all your directions on setting up and installing TSR Download. Yet no matter what I do my DeskJet or DeskJet Plus won't print with soft fonts. A: Both the DeskJet and the DeskJet Plus printers require the use of an external RAM cartridge if you want to use soft fonts. If you don't have a RAM cartridge plugged into your printer your DeskJet can't handle soft fonts. DeskJet owners need a 128K RAM cartridge. DeskJet Plus owners need a 256K RAM cartridge. 25 SHAREWARE INFORMATION TSR Download is a copyrighted computer program. It is being marketed as shareware. The shareware concept lets you evaluate or try a program before you buy it. If you continue to use the program after the evaluation period has ended you must register (pay for) the program. It's that simple. The purpose of user- supported software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incen- tive for programmers to continue to develop new products. TSR Download is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. If you find this program useful and/or you continue to use TSR Download after a trial period of 20 days, you must make a registration payment of $45.00 to Elfring Soft Fonts. The $45.00 registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. Just as a book cannot be read by two different persons at the same time. Commercial users of TSR Download must register and pay for their copies of TSR Download within 10 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site-License arrangements may be made by contacting Elfring Soft Fonts. Why register? Registered users of TSR Download receive a number of additional benefits including: the latest version of the TSR Download program without a registration screen, telephone sup- port, a perfect bound manual with comprehensive index, a copy of our book "The Soft Font Manual", the FONTCAT utility program, a program warranty, and the opportunity to purchase soft fonts at special prices. Anyone distributing TSR Download for any kind of remuneration must first contact Elfring Soft Fonts at the address below for authorization. This authorization will be automatically granted to distributors recognized by the (ASP) as adhering to its guidelines for shareware distributors, and such distributors may begin offering TSR Download immediately (However Elfring Soft Fonts must still be advised so that the distributor can be kept up-to-date with the latest version of TSR Download.) TSR Download may NOT be bundled with any commercial hardware or software package without the prior written approval of Elfring Soft Fonts. You are encouraged to pass a copy of TSR Download along to your friends for evaluation. Please encourage them to register their copy if they find that they can use it. All registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of the TSR Download 26 program, along with numerous other benefits as explained in the documentation. We will also send them an information packet that describes other software available from Elfring Soft Fonts. If you like TSR Download tell your friends! If you don't like the program please write and tell us why! To keep prices on products like this as low as they are we cannot afford to adver- tise. You are our form of advertisement! Tell your friends. If you have the opportunity to write an article in a newsletter or a trade magazine try and spread the word! We need all of the help we can get to put quality software into the users hands without charging inflated prices! If you want to write an article about TSR Download please contact us first. We want to make sure you have the most current version of the program! We would appreciate hearing from you. _______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER Gary Elfring is a member of The Association of Shareware Profes- sionals. The Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) has es- tablished stringent standards for its members. ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are un- able to resolve a problem with an ASP member (other than techni- cal support), ASP may be able to help. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Rd, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a Com- puServe message via easyplex to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. WARRANTY Users of the shareware version of TSR Download must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "TSR Download is supplied as is without warranty of any kind. The author disclaims all warranties, ex- pressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author as- sumes no liability for damages, direct, indirect, or consequen- tial, including lost profits, savings, or damages which may result from the use of TSR Download." Elfring Soft Fonts P.O. Box 61 Wasco, IL 60183 708-377-3520 FAX: 708-377-6402 CIS: 72417,3437 27